Upon their request, the English Press Club sat down with the members of the Corroboration and Review Committee (CRC)—Aaryaman Kalani and Romil Malhotra—to learn about their take on the President’s response to the serious allegations raised by them.
Commenting on the fact that the President mentioned that the SWD refused to circulate a common sheet for semester reports citing privacy issues in his response, Romil denied anything of this sort happening and that the SWD did not deny anything. He also noted that the semester report for the FT2 transactions was given by the SWD to the General Secretary. According to him, it did not make sense that the SWD denied this when they already gave a part of the report to the General Secretary. Coming to the relevance of the report in the current scenario, he said that it helped in ensuring transparency to the GBM. Aaryaman added that the President had confused the FT1 and FT3 semester reports with the semester arrears. He explained more by saying that the semester report was a document that included all the transactions and the President thought it was the fee demand arrears available on the SWD website.
Moving on, Aaryaman explained how the bill-passing procedure was not in effect anymore because it was very technical and involved work from the Union Council (UC) members, which they didn’t do. He added that now the Clearance Cell Model was followed with a tweak. The Clearance Cell constitutes the President as the Head of the Clearance Cell, the CRC and a H-Rep or D-Rep assigned by the UC for each club and department. The difference now is that H-Reps and D-Reps don’t get involved in financial matters any more because of various reasons, he explained. Moreover, he discussed that it was the responsibility of the President and the General Secretary to give the list of H-Reps and D-Reps to the CRC, but they never received that.
Regarding the delay in the Oasis Review Meet (ORM), Romil stated that the President did not conduct it because he arbitrarily thought that the department and club coordinators were not available. He mentioned that it was the Election Commission’s responsibility to check whether the quorum was established or not for the Meet.
Aaryaman discussed that the President solely blaming the CRC for the delay in resolving fee demand discrepancies was wrong. He explained that the CRC does not make the charging sheets. They receive the charging sheets from subsidiaries of the Student Union, and it is the responsibility of the Union Council and the President to send them the charging sheets. However, he added, that because the President could not fulfil his responsibilities, this workload was shifted to the CRC, and they have been doing it for the entire year. He remarked that the delay in charging for the Oasis snaps was due to the same reason. Moreover, he mentioned that they received the charging sheets during the comprehensive examinations, but due to the academic workload, they could not finish the charging in time and the whole thing was pushed to the next semester. He found the fact that the President could find only four screenshots of him contributing to the fee demand discrepancies was ‘embarrassing.’
He remarked that the President did not contribute at all in resolving the fee demand arrears and the CRC had to do all the work themselves.
They emphasised that it was, in contrast to what the President had mentioned in his response, the President’s responsibility to keep the CRC in the loop for any financial matters.
Commenting on the financial malpractice allegations, they said it was not a consultation but rather the CoStAA convincing the President to accept the better offer from the Kingdom of Cuisine vendor, Mr Ashish. Also, they clarified and accepted that it was a manual error on the CRC’s part when they confused the names in the report.
Romil remarked that the President mentioning his hospitalisation as the reason behind his absence from the bill clearance meeting was a ‘blatant lie.’ He went on to say that the President did not have any health issues during the bill clearance meeting for Oasis and instead, it was his ignorance that caused delays. He added that the President was referring to the combined bill clearance meeting of Oasis and APOGEE which the CRC had to forcefully keep towards the end of the second semester as there was no response from the President. Regarding the losses in the SU Trunk Service, Aaryaman explained that the service should never have been done on a deficit. An organisation that is already heavily negative in the ledgers could not bear any losses. Moreover, he added that the President failed to keep the CRC in the loop and that he was conducting a service at a loss.
Aaryaman mentioned that the plan the President was talking about in his response was not a plan but an undertaking given to Mr Satyen Sharma, the Head of the Accounts and Finance Section, stating that he would do those three things to ensure that the ledgers are settled before his tenure ends. But the CRC expected a detailed report and plan of action for fixing the ledgers, which he said the President failed to provide. He also mentioned that the President is manipulating the GBM to turn public opinion in his favour, and whatever he had suggested in that report is also essentially charging the GBM extra.
The CRC acknowledged the President’s explanation that he was in fact in touch with the concerned personnel from the SWD regarding the claiming process and due to some institutional delays he could not bring about the claiming on time. However, they mentioned that they failed to understand how the Head of the Clearance Cell for FT1 and FT3 transactions was not sure about the claiming amount, as Aaryaman said that the claiming amount the President mentioned in his report was wrong. The President could not explain to the administration the amount to be claimed and wasted hours to come to the wrong amount when the CRC had officially mailed him the exact amount and the exact services that were left to be claimed.
The CRC explained that whatever they did was completely constitutional. They said that the bounds of their powers were clearly defined in the Procedure Manual and the SU Constitution. Aaryaman said that not publishing the semester report is a flagrant violation according to the Procedure Manual, and in such cases, the person responsible has to be suspended. Commenting on overstepping their boundaries, Romil added that it is something they are forced to do regularly because of the inadequacy of the President and the UC. Henceforth, they said that they have ensured that the President does not have any financial or signatory powers.
Aaryaman mentioned that the CRC had requested the President to send a rectification mail from his end clarifying this whole case and taking accountability. Still, he did not agree to do so. To this, Romil added that they also suggested calling a GBM meeting to discuss these issues openly, but that did not happen either.
They added that they felt it was right for them to take away his financial powers instead of removing him from his seat towards the end of this tenure to ensure that he had some sense of accountability and to also inform the GBM that an elected representative cannot get away by doing anything for the entire year. On a concluding note, Romil said that the GBM should choose its representatives carefully and that someone with a ‘below 4.5 CGPA’ is not a good choice.